Sense of Soul - Mindful Sex

Episode Date: February 20, 2021

Diana Richardson is the author of many books on Tantra and mindful Sex, and has helped many couples in her Making Love Retreats. Diana is known as the pioneer of the Slow Sex movement. She joined us to talk about her newest book Cool Sex: An Essential Young Adult Guide to Loving, Mindful Sex. Join us as we talk some “Sex Ed”, Diana shares the real secret to satisfying sex is to reduce the heat, to cool down and the importance of touch and healing. Diana along with her partner, Michael Richardson, is the creator of the life-changing weeklong Making Love Retreat, which they have been offering in Europe since 1995.   www.loveforcouples.com www.mysenseofsoul.com  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we're super excited to have Diane Richardson. She is considered one of today's leading authorities on human sexuality. She has previously written seven books on how in practical ways a person can experience a more fulfilling sex and love life. Born in South Africa in 1954, she first qualified as a lawyer and then trained as a massage therapist. Her interest in the body and healing prompt an intense personal exploration into the union of sex and meditation. Since 1993, together with her partner, Michael, she has been sharing her insights and experiences with couples

who travel from many different parts of the world to participate in their informative and life-changing making love workshops in Switzerland. And today Diana is joining us from Switzerland and we're super excited. We're going to be talking about her new book. She has written for young adults called Cool Sex. Thank you for joining us. Wow, so sweet. Well, bless you for inviting me. It's an honor. Yes. Thank you for being with us. For 2021, it would be amazing to start setting an intention with each one of our podcasts. And I was thinking that an intention I would like for today is just to educate people and help them to further their oneness and connection with whoever is in their life, whether it's a spouse or a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

So that was kind of my intention was just to, you know, help people connect on a soul level. What would your intention be? And, you know, for sure in the same way as you, but I would also say to help connect with ourselves. Yes. You know, in all the teaching and all the exploration i've done in the teaching i've done the first step that i show people is we need to be able to connect with ourselves but not in some airy fairy way but start to feel your body because your body your body is the basic reality. And we kind of grow up in a society where all the education is about the mind

and very little about the body. You know, it might be in your school life, you know, a couple of hours a week, but there's, you know, we're not actually taught how to walk, how to stand, how to sit, how to eat, you know, so these are basic functions. And then let alone sex. how to eat, you know, so these are basic functions and then let alone sex. My intention is, you know, to encourage people to be more interested in the body, but not from

the outside, really from the inside. I listened to your TED talk and you talk a lot about that awareness, that body awareness, which Shanna and I always say that getting a sense of your soul starts with that awareness. So can you talk about that awareness for a moment? You know, generally speaking, our attention is outside of ourselves. So we're monitoring everything. We're more aware of what is going on outside of ourselves than actually what's happening inside of ourselves. And what's happening inside of ourselves and and when i say inside of yourself you know it's not it's about beginning to give value to the subtle happenings in your body you know we very much imprinted around the body with them

sensation and intensity but this all takes us away you know really from the inner so the way i always work with people and myself is you find a place in your body that feels like easy for you to connect it i call it like an inner home when you find yourself in thought you know you come back to the body so this requires awareness we're so tense often you know we're clenching here we're clenching there that awareness of just softening the body the moment you soften the body it'll take a breath or a few breaths yeah you know or alternatively and you know you bring awareness to your breath very often how we are physically in our bodies is very contorted and collapsed but you know if you bring some level of alignment and awareness

inside you know then it has a certain radiance and a grace. Awareness is just basic to a more fulfilled way of living. Yeah, I agree. Can you tell me, Diana, how does one go from lawyer to massage therapist? Well, you know, I grew up in apartheid South Africa and naturally the impulse was to do something to help the people, you know, the oppressed ones. And so I did six years at university and honestly, I was in the courts for a while and just so awful what was happening there in the sense of prejudices in the eyes of the people so all the magistrates all the judges um you know just depended what color you were so I just thought if I stay being a lawyer it's a life of the mind I want a life of the heart and touch and I always had since a kid

this this love of touching and so then I just got a book and started and it's something I kind of knew to do and then I left South Africa went to the UK did massage courses started teaching massage and I think it's really the one step I am so happy about really that body connection and that love of giving massage and that actually led me to inquire about sex. So it was this like a little journey. So yeah, like you, you know, you've probably massaged thousands of kilometers. Yes, yes. For me, that's how I started working with energy work. And part of it was because I was taking on their symptoms. That was my first like real psychic thing that happened to me. I was unaware of at the time, but I had a list of symptoms when I went to the doctor

and more than half of them were my client's symptoms. Wow. It only happened to me once where I was massaging a very psychic lady and I just totally put on everything. But what I found, you know, the more I anchored in my body and then that was less likely to happen. Right. Which I had no tools of. So that's why I always say to, you know, people coming into this, you must be rooted, you must be grounded and protected. Otherwise, good luck. Right. Yeah um and actually it was while I was giving massage that I started to experiment with relaxation and just looking to see the more I relax the more the person relaxed the more deep I was in myself the deeper the other one was and you know when I relaxed my pelvic floor, that had an impact on

the quality of my touch. So when I started to experiment in lovemaking, exactly all those keys I started to do in lovemaking and it totally changed the picture. So today I call those, you know, especially my first book that I wrote in 1996, you know, I call them the love keys. And they also mentioned in this Cool Sex book, but a lot of them are what I discovered in massage. And it's actually beautiful because these, all these things are not separate. Do you know, it's like if you're a teacher and standing in front of a class of people, and if you relax, it has an impact on how you convey things, how they are received. And I've had many people like lawyers and singers and just saying, wow, just, you know, putting those things into daily life, you know, aside

from lovemaking has an impact. I was just thinking when you were saying that, like as a mother with a baby, I remember with my first child, I was very stressed. And I was like, why is this child crying so much? But you know, by my fourth kid, I had it. And so she was a lot more calmer, I was calmer. And so it's true. And I think that for myself, I'm not aware of that enough. Yes, I've had parents tell me this about new babies, mother or the father goes really deep into themselves. The baby just relaxes, you know, it's so fascinating. I was trying to calm my puppy down last night. She was super hyper and nibbling on us and tugging on our sweatshirts. And so I just decided to center myself and root myself in the living room. And I'm not even kidding you. My husband

and my daughter were shocked because the second I just calmed myself, the puppy just like laid right in my lap and went to sleep. You know, it's so true. It's amazing. And I love this conversation because I don't think we talk about it enough, how our energy can really affect everything and everyone around us. I think that we need to talk about this more. Yeah. I mean, just to talk about dogs, I had an experience. I was living in Italy in a rented house.

And so people had a little dog outside that they tethered to a tree close to our bedroom window. And it was yapping, yapping, yapping. And there was nothing to do because it wasn't my dog. And so I decided I'm going to go and visit that dog. And honestly, like from inside my body, I kind of reached through the wall, went outside, you know, just, just energetically took myself there. And when I felt that I touched that dog, it stopped barking.

I couldn't believe it. It is extraordinary what is possible through people being more centered, more anchored in themselves, more relaxed. You said that you kind of dove into massage therapy and that led you into doing some more research. Is sex education something that you got through a school, through books, through people, through workshops, retreats, or all the above? None of the above. Oh, okay. Really through personal experience. I mean, I did get some inputs. I had two sources. One was Osho, an Indian master.

He kind of reinterpreted the ancient Tantric scriptures. And there was just a few things that he said that I cottoned on to. And then there was also an Australian master, Barry Long, who, you know, was also, he did a couple of CDs called Making Love in the early 80s. And I listened to those. And he says, he says, you know, you really need to admit that you don't know how to make love in order to work with changing the way you make love. I couldn't at that moment say that. But five years later, I came back. And so I listened to those CDs and put it into practice. And whatever I read in Osho's books, I put into practice. So it was really a completely organic thing. It was for my own love life, sex life. And I didn't have any, fortunately, many people do have traumatic experiences through sex.

So it was just out of curiosity. You know, I experimented very intensely. I was living in India. Most of the time was in bed and just observing and observing and practicing and trying things out and observing, not trying to make any conclusions, having no goal. And then, you know, things just start to get clear. So the way it kind of felt was like having a bird's eye view you know on something you're very close to something and the more you go into it the further

away you get from it so you can see more and then because I was living in a commune people started to come to me and ask me questions and I found oh I can answer these questions and then that led organically to offering retreats and teaching and writing a book and the first book I wrote the heart of tantric sex the reason I wanted to write a book was to see if I could write in words what I felt in my body and I really enjoyed it and the book is actually it turned out to be quite a success but so the whole thing has had no mind in it or no no kind of a goal so it's kind of also you know it's like oh wow you know you just take these little steps and then today here we are talking yeah I was the first generation on both sides of my family that I actually had a child before getting married. And I definitely think I've told my children,

you better try it out before you make a commitment for the rest of your life. This book, Cool Sex, is really geared towards young people, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, age range 14 to 25. But even adults, we didn't, you know, participants in my retreats, they say, Oh, this book is really good. It's like a synopsis. You know, sex is just, it's natural. There has been a lot of sex repression, you know, through different rules from the society and so on. And people are having sex much younger. I mean, I was 18, but many girls that are younger than me now, they were 14, 15, some 13.

And it's also, you know, if you have a little information, it makes a difference. But then parallel what we've got developing over some years is pornography. Now, since it's, it wasn't books and films and so on, but since online, it's giving a very, very specific and one-sided view of the situation, which then people, that's kind of like the education. They see that and they which then people, that's kind of like the education. They see that and they think, okay, that's how we do it. And then that puts girls in difficulties. They think they've got to reproduce this to be loved or lovable, puts men in difficulties or boys that they've got to perform in this way, you know, and they don't

realize that actually this is just created. It's not even real. You know, it's all put together. It's just a show. Plus, you know, that is imprinting the brain and the images and the wiring. So in fact, it's becoming more and more important. And it's not in any way to say that is wrong, but it's just, we need to give another side. I'm so scared that, you know, when a child's like, oh, I wonder what a blow job is. Well, let me look it up. I've heard that word, you know, or, you know, if they're curious now, they just have their little computers in their hand and in two seconds, a million porn sites, you know, and now they think that girls need to be porn stars, which I'm not a porn star.

And I would never want someone to treat my daughter this way. I know. And I was just going to add that sometimes I've even researched things that have nothing to do with porn or sex, but it, and it just, it tags it and somehow it pops up. So these kids are getting on there without intentionally trying to look at it, researching something for school. And there it is. Right, right. So, you know, it's kind of a reflection of how important sex is, you know, that people are interested, but it's just one track. But even if you look at the movies, and anytime you see two people coming together, they all over each other. Do you know what I mean? Everybody's on top of the other one, which is a complete displacement of your attention

or of your awareness. So one of the first things is you start, you know, to come back and be more centered in yourself. And so that when you come together with somebody, there's an energy between you. You know, if it's displaced, each one focusing on the other, actually, there's nothing really happening within the individuals themselves. So that is really one of the first things that I guide people into. And, you know, you've got to come back to this body.

And that's why, you know, like this, we talked about in the beginning about this anchor point, you know, just having a reference or the breath or softening your body so that we come with our presence, you know, because that is the problem in sex. We're not really there. You know, we all kind of hectic and over the other and trying to get somewhere, you know, because that is the problem in sex. We're not really there. You know, we all kind of hectic and over the other and trying to get somewhere, you know, basically trying to build up intensity, which leads them to a peak. So this is where, you know, right quite aside from porn, where we need some education, you know, to slow it down, to cool it down, to reduce the sexual temperature, because you can also really have

a fine time operating at a lower level temperature. And the thing is with building up too much heat and intensity and stimulation is that leads to premature ejaculation. You know, that's very distressing for a man, disempowering or, you know, creates a lot of self-doubt. And within that time, it's also very difficult for women, you know, to a lot of self-doubt. And within that time, it's also very difficult for women, you know, to have any meaningful experience because often the timeframe is very short. So the whole love exchange can be stretched through reducing the sexual temperature.

And so that's why the title is Cool Sex. Oh, got it. Well, I tell you, sometimes I like that quick thing, you know, just like real quick, you know what i got stuff to do you know are you gonna go to work when one's not ready or one doesn't want to or woke it up out of a dead sleep you know or this is all the time we have we have to do it quick fast before the baby wakes up you know life kind of gets in the way of sex sometimes. Yes, no, for sure. Look, quickies are great, you know, but you can still be present in your quickie. There you go. Yeah. So what is the difference about this book to your other books? Essentially, there's a congruence, you know, so it's not like in one book you're saying this in another book you're saying that that just wouldn't make sense isn't

it in four different languages yes yes german french spanish and now english it's a shorter book it's not so elaborate and easier for younger people to go through and absorb okay i like it so we i how do you feel about multiple sex partners then get to fall in love many times in many ways and I think that like you've said how sex is natural you know I mean I'm not thinking like you know like a monkey or something you're going around and just picking whoever but even with monkeys though I think they choose generally a family I mean what how do you feel about that well I never wanted to be married and I never wanted children. So I'm not really the person to talk to. You know, I always

felt about marriage. If somebody wants to leave me or if I want to leave somebody, we need to be free to go. I agree. I do too. I used to not feel that way. I feel that way now. It's like we don't own each other in that way. Yeah. I mean, we don't own each other in that way. And I think, you know, we do have a very possessive story around the partner and it's the possession that leads to jealousy and, and, and people think jealousy is love or possession is love. It's not love. Do you know, you know what I'm saying? So. Yeah, I do. That attachment is not.

Yes. And if we were not so, if our society was not so on the nuclear or the, I'm sure this is all learned behaviors, you know, we'd be much more relaxed. There would be much less unhappiness. Is this book exclusively for female and males connections? Look, it is because that's my experience. Okay. You know, and one cannot teach something that's not the experience, not to say that I haven't had intimacies with women, but definitely, and it's actually mentioned in the book, any gender orientation, any two people coming together can work with awareness, with being more present, with relaxation, with not being so focused on the goal you know obviously some specifics and this is a difficulty because with hetero you have the penis vagina thing which is another level but it's another aspect so we have addressed that you know general situation

in the book so there is a lot that can be drawn out of that okay and me and shanna are the same way a lot of times when on our podcast we mention that we only like to speak on experience so yes yeah and you know ultimately you know it is possible to circulate energy within yourself as an individual, which is desirable, regardless of whether who you with, right? No. So that is one of the benefits of this kind of, you know, being more anchored in the body approach. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between mind filled sex and mindful sex? Well, it's, you know, mind-filled sex is a lot about fantasy, a lot about expectations, a lot about ideas. And mindful sex is this whole quality of awareness and bringing more, coming back, you know,

from being more, what I say, from being up and out to being in and down and so you know mindful sex you know it's it's things we've already mentioned you know like if you soften your body or a man relaxes his buttocks and anus or woman her vagina it changes the whole the whole energy you know also you need mindfulness in the sense of okay okay, now things are getting a bit hot. We can just relax, you know, oops, now a little overexcitement. We can just relax because every time you catch yourself and relax, there's an expansion of energy within you and it's empowering. So it's like people think of relaxation is like collapsing, you know, just suddenly going dead yeah you know but it's it's when we are physically tight our body energy is compressed and as soon as we relax it expands and that's actually what

everybody is longing for is expanded experiences they don't know it yeah but when you have an expanded experience those are the ones that you remember and they can stay with you for your whole life like you will remember that moment and you might not understand why but it's because you were like you know everything was wide you know but how we are in mind filled sex is is we totally in the mind and the whole body is not in the picture and it's just compressed so it's kind of like a leakage in a way, you know, but when you kind of come in and down and relax and, you know, then you get filled with that vitality. So there is a big difference between the two, but you know, it has to be tried out. The mind can't grasp it. Yeah. Well, and I loved how you talked about how mind filled sex consists of all these expectations.? That's it. Or wow, I wasn't present.

I suck. And there's kind of some negative self-talk because of those expectations. I think it's hard to sometimes be present because you're so you're feeling so insecure about things. Is my tummy too fat? Does my butt look good? I can't see. Does this angle look better? You know, I mean, you're in your mind worried about your insecurities, not just, you know, performance, but also your physical. Absolutely. And, you know, and this is really like, because we have an objective view of ourselves and that's why we need to get subjective.

And because anybody is beautiful, it's what presence and inner connection the person has. And then that, of course, changes your whole radiance and your whole quality of your connection. So the insecurity comes because you're on the outside of yourself. Okay. When you get more anchored in yourself and more present in yourself, there can be a feeling of being maybe a little bit more more vulnerable, or, in fact, vulnerabilities, often openness and having the courage to do things, you know, a bit different. But, you know, this is the whole shift, really, you know, from mind to body. Yeah. But one thing about the whole focus on orgasm, and this peak experience is that very often people do feel disconnected afterwards

yeah so you can have a lovely time it can be a great peak but often there is this feeling of separation and we kind of think of it as past part and parcel of of sex but when you make love for longer and also you know it's possible to make love without bringing it to a peak and i'm not talking about ejaculation control because that's something we absolutely don't recommend but if you just stay in the relaxed zones and you don't bring it to a peak you will feel the connection with the person connection stays so there's not this kind of depletion or loss of energy you know of course you know I'm talking um generally because some people say oh I feel so energized but um there's

just often a feeling of separation you know and we know the jokes the man turns over snores and women are just going like hallelujah what happened you know and feeling abandoned and uh you know kind of left it really is of value to you know to try this whole thing with more awareness but like you said shanna you know there's not enough time but we have to create time yeah manty and i talk a lot about oxytocin we talk about so important some youotonin, melatonin, all these things that are released when you just love and when you meditate. What are the benefits for our bodies and brain and health-wise

with having orgasm and sex like this? Well, I really haven't. In the book, there is a bit about all these things. I've never really paid them much attention. I just know that when I have an expanded experience an ecstatic experience you know I just feel so well and so flowering and empowered and shining and in love oh I love that flowering I know I love that i've never never heard that used to describe it but i like that yeah how do you suggest we talk to our children and at what age about sex i think it's a very

delicate area i think the the most important thing is that they learn from you through seeing and how you are being you know your your quality of the relationship with your partner not to be too emotional and reactive and toxic with each other because this creates fear in children so if you can have a harmonious loving environment then the children expand i mean look like i said you know i didn't have children it was a conscious choice and um so I have not had to go through that but I know children generally do not like to even think that their parents have sex right I never knew never Barry Long he gave some advice which I you know I do pass on to people he said you know wait until they ask yeah and when they ask only answer what they ask don't give them a full

download because parents suddenly think whoops here's this window boom you know I've had so many parents come to me and just say you know I'm 40 50 now. I don't want my children to wait this long until they found out that information. So, I mean, it is possible. It depends on the vibration, the connection with your child or teenager or whatever, just really to talk from the heart about yourself. I'm very raw as a parent. So I will actually say to my daughter, your father and I are going to go in the bedroom and make out for a while. No, that's absolutely excellent. No, that's, that is perfect. And we're going to love on each other and I need you to, you know, take your little sister and I'm very forward with her.

And she giggles a little bit and rolls her eyes, but I'm just very open with her as I was with the topic about sex. Yeah, no, I think that's definitely, definitely, you know, if somebody is intelligent, you know, like yourself and open and they can feel, you know, I can feel your lovingness right now, you know, then that is great because then, you know, it's natural. And this thing of, you know, actually telling your young ones, we're going to make love.

And that's what we in our retreats tell the parents, you have to tell the children, we need this time. We're going to make love. I think a lot of parents are hearing this new wording that's, that's being thrown out there and taking it to manipulate their teenagers. And what the wording is, is that there's this spiritual exchange. So you're taking on the other person's energy. And if you have sex with them, you're taking on their baggage, their problems. Now to a degree, we know that in energy exchange is, can be very powerful, but they're using it to manipulate their kids to not have sex. I've been hearing that a lot. What are your thoughts on that do you feel that when you have sex with someone you're going to exchange that energy and you're going to be taking on all their negativity forever

no no it's not it's not you know i i'm in myself i'm fully in the awareness and the flow and it's an exchange and you know if you're not in an awareness i think it could be the same thing as when you're a massage therapist and you take on their pain or if you're not in an awareness i think it could be the same thing as when you're a massage therapist and you take on their pain or if you're sitting next to them and having a conversation i would think even more intimately i mean that's my opinion i would definitely see that well i think you know people need to be conscious of who they're choosing to make love absolutely and that the person needs to have enough love in them, especially for young girls, you know, wait to make love until there is love enough. You know, then it's a beautiful experience, but often it's exploitative in different ways. Shanna and I really think that self-love and learning to get to know yourself first before you do this is so important. We're not taught self-love. So here we are looking for happiness

outside of us. And the act of sex is done in a way to fulfill our love for ourself. And it's not going to work. It's projected outwards thing. Yes. And so this is why the body is so important that you develop from young a body awareness you know this is again you know children do imitate their parents and i've seen it so often the father sits like this the son will sit like this the mother stands like that the daughter will stand like that and you know a lot of the sports and things are very competitive and so on. But things like Tai Chi and Qigong and things that are more feminine, they take people into the body.

This is what is needed. But this is something that a person can develop or go into at any point in their lives. But children should be massaged. Right. They should be massaging each other. But instead, you you know there's almost this like touch fear right yes this is generational too and i see that these younger kids who are more open because we've allowed them to be a little bit more open right maybe that will change but

you're right touch is so important right and even self-touch and i'm not talking about in a stimulating way just massaging your own body yes it's just awesome yeah what one can do for oneself you know to liberate tensions liberate fears and but just basically the body is not given enough and it's taken for granted our minds are our minds or our bodies are there to carry our minds around but if you can be more present in your body in the here and now you just have an easier life right with every in every area do you think if sex is very sacred is it a sacred practice well i mean if there's love in it, that's good enough for me. You know, I'm a bit of a simple creature.

I love it. You know, it's like, for sure, light some candles, put some incense, make the room beautiful. But if you bring awareness and love into it, it's sacred. But it's not like I'm doing sacred sex. In fact, sacred is scarcely a word I use when I'm teaching, working with people. Why is that? Because it just seems like too high of an expectation to get to sacred. You know, it's again, working with the ideas, you know, and expectation instead of the simplicity of, and I come in the awareness and come together and

in my senses and so on. So it's something higher it's not you know sacredness is something that will emerge or not okay right and if it doesn't it's also fine you know if there's if there's love it doesn't have to be sacred you know i just think it's a word that just puts ideas and then those then create another kind of level of separation you know within a person a disconnection so i am you know for sure i've had many experiences a variety of experiences but were they sacred probably but not as the way i registered no i was just like awesome you know juicy or delicious or wild you know flowery flowery they're much more grounded you know people get a bit a bit airy fairy right yeah you're not

levitating so can you give us an example of an exercise in your book so there's you know one scanning the body and relaxing, you know, different parts. You tighten up and you relax and tighten up and relax. Another one with energizing the pelvis, you know, bring energy back into the body, you know, with kind of opening the legs and closing them with different sounds and so on. And quite a few different ones for women to bring more attention into the breasts the men into into the perineum anything works yeah you know my partner and i used to like to dance a lot and and actually still sometimes that is such a could be such a starter of something just the

closeness and sensing like the energy between you and him and that kind of before anything sexual you know that's that is fantastic to have a dance you know to come into the body first you know yeah even dancing by yourself yeah yeah absolutely right have you seen the goop lab with Gwyneth Paltrow? No, it's a movie on Netflix. Yeah, she has one on what we're talking about, where she has women put a mirror in between their legs and get to know themselves and like understand their vagina. And it's interesting how many women don't know what they look like or what happens or the nerves in different areas. It's, it's so funny

that we have been brought up to have no education and no knowing of our own bodies. No one wants to talk about it. Nobody told me that after four kids, my vagina was going to maybe fall out. And then when I went to the doctor and they filled me up with a bunch of water and the guy told me to cough I thought are you crazy I had four kids you know it was insane but like no one ever talked to me about those things it's not even friends nobody so I was like I do I talk about it with people because you should know what's happening inside of your body. I remember when I was a student in South Africa, a law student, a few of us friends, a bunch of us women, we went and we photographed each other's vaginas and pubic areas. We had a wall full of them.

Wow. It's so beautiful to see. A flower. Yeah. it's so beautiful to see a flower yeah i think that that's actually a very beautiful thing and that's kind of what she's doing in the episode yeah the goop lab it's it's a really cool series that they did there's so much shame in society around this i love love how, and of course in the, you know, the sixties free love was, was acceptable and society has changed that now. And then you add in religion and on all of these, um, and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And so it's so much shame around it because you're right. They get sex ed in high school for maybe what, like a hours now they blame it all on eve you know they

blame it all on a woman and an apple you know for the shame of our bodies yeah yeah yeah thank you for writing all of these books and with such grace talking about something that a lot of people are afraid to talk about well honestly you know it's just lovely to feel both of your different openness and really living life in a true and real way, doing this podcast and everything. Can you tell our listeners where they can find all of your books? And can you talk a moment about the retreats? And I'm sure those have changed a little bit with COVID. But can you just maybe also tell them your website? It is livinglove.com. There actually is a book section and there you'll see all my books. But

if you type the name Diana Richardson to Amazon or something, they will come up. The retreats are seven days, residential, necessary to do this inner anchoring, getting people to feel themselves from the inside out. And that's why I need i need seven days you know so that people really can leave with a new inner experience what we call more connection to the inner body we have dancing we have different movement meditations we have tai chi then we do for about an hour and a half every day and what we call an orientation step by step going deeper and deeper into sex so we start on on a relatively not superficial superficial but first level and then the next day another level and going down you know really to the healing possibilities

of sex and so on and couples have time to practice and so that's a very important part because you can talk about it and talk about it and talk about it but actually to get down to do it so they're the whole there's a structure you know the hot the space is held meals are provided and then they have some hours to make love and then we do different kinds of body work exchange but it's always totally within the one couple it's a personal experience it's individual you as an individual and as a couple it's not like the group is doing something together it's very private and people there's no exposure you can share if you want to you don't have to say something you can be quiet the whole week you don't even have to even say hello to us it's fine so diane we have

this thing on sense of soul where we ask our guests to break that shit down we call it our btsd and what that is is just leaving our listeners with something that's on your heart And now it's time for break that shit down. Your body is the bridge to reality. The more you can honor, respect and live inside your body, this brings a whole radiance to your being, to your life. And you will just feel much more secure more confident and the more you can connect with yourself the easier it is to connect with other people thank you yeah thank you i don't like little surprises like that you did wonderful you did great thank you so very much. Thanks for being with us today.

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